Quasipan the Nigh Lord
by Gliblord
Summary: Finn and Jake must wage battle with a psychic alien cat overlord in order to recover Finn's memories. But can they overcome a series of obstacles inside their own minds?
1. From on Nigh

**QUASIPAN, THE NIGH LORD**

**Part 1:**** From On Nigh**

An hour past noon on the rolling Meerkat Plains of Ooo, site of countless inter-rodent skirmishes and five or so outright inter-rodent wars, each spanning whole minutes. Today, however, it was peaceful, but only because the presence of these two valiant journeyers-forth put a stop to a dangerous and quite icky instigator, the unseemly Baron Ick—who had incited chaos between the various rodent tribes in order to bottle their coveted, exceedingly fragrant sweat.

"'Ælfgifu'?" Finn poked the thankful little vole in the belly. "Haha! No way that's your name, dude."

"It is!" peeped up the small rodent resembling a mouse but with a stouter body, a shorter, hairy tail, a slightly rounder head, smaller ears and eyes, and differently formed molars. "Except you need to roll your tongue more on that _fg_ sound."

"Finn, you didn't even think 'voles' could be the name of a real species until just today," said Jake.

"Before _today_ I'd never rescued a colony of these cuties from Baron Ick."

"Stand aside, Finn. He's probably hurting a bit after you tossed him into the mouth of that ick maniac, and I know way more about magical anatomy than you do."

"Hey! You just want to poke little Ælfgifu yourself!"

Jake sprouted three additional hands, index fingers poised at the ready. "Yeah, you're right," he admitted gleefully.

"Not too hard on my flooshma gland," Ælfgifu cautioned, but it was too late. And a stray poke provoked a veritable avalanche of flooshma to spew out of the vole's mouth.

"Ewwwwwww."

"Hold on Jake, this 'flooshma' actually smells pretty okay."

"Hey, you're not wrong. I guess it's more than just the rodents' sweat that's so great."

Finn sniffed the ooze covering Jake's pelt. "Is that... _roses_?"

"No!" Ælfgifu moaned, clutching the spot where Jake must have prodded his flooshma gland.

"Man, leave the odor sleuthing around here to the dog."

Suddenly, a voice boomed from on high. "Nay, it is not the smell of roses, CRETIN!"

Down crashed a figure of some awe. A white bobtail cat around half Finn's size, seated at the helm of a personal UFO command module now hovering a meter above the windswept grass.

"Ah _fg_," cried Ælfgifu. "That makes three interlopers on the plains _this hour!_"

"WRONG!" shouted the imperious alien cat. "There was a fourth interloper this hour, in the form of an itinerant ladybug passing through your hallowed battleground, totally unnoticed except for me, QUASIPAN THE NIGH LORD!"

"Well, actually if you count Jake then it's five interlopers," said Finn.

The floating spaceship cat ignored this. "Anyway, cretin, the smell of the flooshma this cat emits is a combination of the chemicals quintoxoyottadrin and ichthyolipilin, with just a DASH of roses!"

A pause.

"This _cat's_ flooshma?" Jake stared.

"It's... not a cat?" Quasipan stammered.

"Uhhh..." Jake didn't know what to say, but after a moment he tried a consoling tack. "What's the matter, Quasipan? Do you need help with anything? We _are_ the helping kind of adventurers, you know."

Quasipan snapped. "Silence, piteous hound dog! Of course, I _know_, and I never require ANY assistance. I but seek another creature of the _feline_ persuasion to grant my gift."

"Your gift?" asked Finn. "I want a gift."

"Pffft," hissed Quasipan, making a show of his holding back a mighty peal of derisive laughter. "A brain-whacked boy like you, Fred the Human, can barely fathom the sheer depth of this power I possess, the power of APPOXIMATE WORLD KNOWLEDGE. Only another cat may share my soaring wisdom."

"So you're lonely," said Jake.

"Yes, well, the last cat to whom I granted a fraction of my unbelievably vast store of knowledge may have resented it. But that is only because that cat was demonic to begin with, and _maybe_ partially because I ripped out part of its very being and soul to complete the transaction."

"Oh, I met that cat," Finn recalled. "He was actually really dumb. Like, monster dumb."

"You think you can stand against me, human!?" Quasipan snarled. "That cat only sacrificed a small part of its body. I removed my *entire tail,* and in so doing earned my slightly overpowering mien! Cower slightly before my moderate magnificence!"

A wave of psychic pressure assaulted their senses; Finn's brains felt like they were getting air blown into them, and his every other thought was foisted upon him: "Ælfgifu is a cat, Ælfgifu is a cat..."

"Yeesh, not another psychic being," shouted Jake, clutching his head and whimpering. "Just last week we had to rein in-"

Quasipan finished the sentence for him. "...rein in 'Moliad!'"

"Close enough."

Hypnotized, Ælfgifu squeaked: "I am a cat."

"No fair, that's a tiny mind you're manipulating!" said Finn.

"Hey!" The vole's hair pricked at the offense.

Gritting his pearly whites, Finn fished his trusty sword out of his backpack and charged at Quasipan. "Hee-yaaaaah!"

Quasipan was forced to let up his mental barrage of "Ælfgifu is a cat" messages, but he easily dodged each of Finn's strikes.

"You can't hit me, I can predict ALL of your moveme-"

Finn delivered a roundhouse kick straight into the side of the cat's UFO seat, destroying its gravitational rudder and sending the device to cold earth. When Quasipan crawled out of the "wreckage," such that it was, he was not pleased.

"FOOLS!" he wheezed. "Now you've really raked my nape!"

Quasipan hacked up a magic furball that contained within it a pocket universe, wherein he controlled all the parameters.

"Uwooooooooah!" Jake wrapped around Finn as they got sucked into the gross wet hairball, but there were no trees to grasp onto in these Meerkat Plains.

"Your breath smells, Quasipaaaaaaaaaaaann..."

"Now you two are in a world where I _do_ know everything!" Quasipan cackled before stepping into his own hairball.

Ewww.


	2. God's Hairball

**Part 2:**** God's Hairball**

"Whoa…" Finn rubbed his eyes. "Is this the…"

A lovely little disembodied kitty head glided their way and nibbled Jake on the ear, confirming Finn's suspicion.

"Yes, Fred the Human, this is indeed the Phantom World—"

"Spirit World," Finn corrected.

"Either way is fine," Quasipan countered, prowling his personal dimension, and encircling the two with predatory eyes as the lost feline body parts flitted in and out of existence against the dark, moist hairball walls.

"It's listed here in the Enchiridion as 'the Spirit World,'" said Jake, rummaging through Finn's backpack for a nice sandwich to sniff; Quasipan's domain was most decidedly not redolent of roses. "Your knowledge must be connected to the Spirit World somehow. It's probably equivalent exchange or something."

"Gross, does that mean this part of his brain's been scooped out, and so this is where all his hairballs end up?" Finn yecked.

"You dare backtalk the master of this world?" Quasipan hissed, and then he fell on his side, since he lacked a tail with which to balance his quadrupedal gait. Hurriedly he scrambled back onto his feet and sat down on his hind legs, passing his tumble off as though he had planned it. Gazing at the two mental bottom feeders he'd seen fit to invite to his brain's attic, he spoke: "The only way out is through me. I'm afraid you can't afford to cross me."

"Yeah, okay," scoffed Jake, "except for my secret SUPER STRETCHY EXPLOSION TECHNIQUE!" Jake performed a ninja hand seal and blew up in size in order to pound on the confines of the hairball, but with a snap of the digits of Quasipan's paw, the pooch found himself unable to expand.

"Huh? What's going on?" Jake scratched his head.

"I believe whelps like you aren't capable of any such stretchy nonsense," Quasipan decreed airily. "You see, a rather convenient upside of this realm of APPROXIMATE WORLD KNOWLEDGE, inside my brain, is that, should I _choose_ to reflect on it, I would find that _people who normally wouldn't be able to do unbelievable things, can't do them_. You are a dog. A dog, as I understand it, cannot stretch. Therefore, you cannot stretch. And you, Fred: as the only remaining human, you are the greatest outlier of all… if you catch my meaning."

"…Oh no…" Finn blanched in horror.

"Perhaps the world would start to make a little more sense if you simply dropped dead, Fred."

Finn brandished his sword and recklessly charged forth, shouting "No way! I won't let you stop to think about it!"

"That blade looks quite brittle and beat up—it's high time it broke, wouldn't you agree?"

Quasipan cackled as the sword disintegrated in Finn's hands.

Another snap of the paw, and Quasipan was now prowling upside-down on the ceiling. "A nigh lord like myself ought to ascend to a slightly higher plane of existence than you lowlives, all things considered."

"Get back here, coward!" Jake jabbed his finger skyward accusingly. "Don't make me use my mind powers on _you_!"

Jake began to hover in place in a stance of meditation, rubbing his temples in order to prepare a psychic attack, and to shoo away the spectral cat head still nibbling on his ear.

""Dude, life's on the line, nooooooot helping." Finn was now bending his knees repeatedly in anxiety, hands balled up into fists.

Quasipan continued: "Humans didn't typically wear hats by the time they were wiped out, and certainly not a hat like _that_."

A snap, and Finn's hair flowed freely.

"I can but lift a finger, and strip you of all your experience and power and authority—And my, my, that hair seems to exceed the average length of a male human's by a wide margin—"

"Yeah, well CATS CAN'T SNAP THEIR PAWS," Finn fired back, fists ablaze and eyes indignant.

"Eh?" Quasipan's paws had been rendered mute, no matter how emphatically he snapped his non-opposable fingers.

Bingo! It worked both ways!

"And most cats don't have approximate world knowledge, either!"

Finn braced himself, expecting the pocket dimension to crumble. But nothing happened.

"I am MORE than a mere 'cat,' BOY!" Quasipan seethed. "Here, I am a GOD!"

Finn swallowed down tears as the impact of another psychic wave hit his head like a fire hose.

"You are here to amuse me, not to challenge me!" Quasipan cried. "And should you fail to sufficiently entertain me, I might return to dwelling upon the fate of the human race once more."

The last thing Finn saw before he blacked out was Quasipan's gratified rictus.


	3. Survivor's Guilt

**Part 3: Survivor's Guilt**

"Awaken, Fred."

Finn's eyes grogged tighter. "Uggh."

A shaft of light materialized photon by photon directly behind his eyelids. "Aaaaaaaah, all right, all right, I'm awake!"

And now Finn couldn't tell whether or not his eyelids were open, since the world without was just as white.

"You are awake. Fred."

He didn't like the sounds of this. He looked up. Sure enough, there floated Quasipan, his sinister smile intact.

"Where—"

"Your inner world. Rather barren, I must say," he chided snidely.

"It can't be! I've been to my inner world before, back when Marceline lost her memory! It had stuff!"

"Marceline? Oh, yes, isn't she that poor princess you slew?"

"What!?" Finn squinted as blots of color dripped down from Quasipan's perch in the blank sky.

"What's this? You don't remember? Well, I suppose a mass murderer such as yourself WOULD need to scrub his mind of his heinous deeds when faced with a psychic. You probably can't even remember that last desperate act of deception. No last-minute memory swapping can fool me, however. I'll tan your hide inside and out. Shall I paint the scene for you, tyrant boy?"

The mind-ink swirled and spiraled and took form.

"I don't know what you wore when you drove the stake through her heart… I'm looking through your mind's eye, after all, and I only know _almost_ everything…" he purred. "So I'll just go with what suits you best."

At Quasipan's behest, an executioner's dread drapery superimposed itself on Finn's clothes. Finn felt dazed, disoriented, even as the paint hopped onto his hand and congealed into blood and splinters. Finn began to breathe heavily, afraid at what the mass of black at the corners of his eye, quivering at his feet, might be.

"Marceline… No, I… but…"

It was mute, this memory; even the bats and the shuddering castle doors didn't make a sound. But the pleading, the pleading was in her eyes. No outstretched hand could wound his heart so totally.

"She looked too human, she _had_ to die." Quasipan had to stuff his paw in his mouth to keep from snickering. The false memory was working, it was taking root!

"Who!? WHO DID THIS?" Finn's adventurer instinct took hold of him; he searched the chamber wildly for a culprit, a clue.

"Oh how you tormented her," Quasipan pressed on. "And to think, it all started with an innocent prank. But in the end, a vampire couldn't be allowed to be happy—especially a loner like her! She may not have had a reflection herself, but she certainly reflected YOU."

Maddeningly, only the cat's voice rang in Finn's head. Overtaking his own thoughts. Replacing them with lies.

"NO!" Finn resisted, he pushed, he held his ground. He crouched down and cradled Marceline's shrinking, withered form in his arms. _This is humanity—humanity is warmth and love. Feel my warmth, Marceline!_

"Oh the humanity," said Quasipan.

The castle doors flew open and the sunlight erased Marceline like an overexposed photo.

"You humans did love abusing your 'warmth and love,' didn't you?"

A crest of paint engulfed Finn, leaving him with a torch in one hand and a gun in the other, before they dissolved and dribbled down his fingers.

"It's not as though you were any less cruel in the sunlight, you know. And as the last of _your_ kind, you must have been one nasty nugget indeed. Were your fellow humans not enough to slake your thirst for violence?"

Quasipan's confabulations were stacking one on top of the other. If there was one thing Quasipan knew precisely how to do, it was to instill self-loathing.

"Once, you slaughtered an entire tribe before lunch!"

The painterly scene of the vampire castle flipped upside-down, so that Finn's feet rested on the other reverse side of the floor, and the silent bats fluttered upside down beneath him. Added mind-ink bubbled before him into shapes and hues—a new scene painted on top of the old one, both playing in real time simultaneously.

Balloonfolk! It was a party. A celebration, congratulating the smiley balloon people for the successful lifting of their curse to die. They had braved the rain of daggers, and survived to the last man, now taking refuge in Finn's friendless, video game-less hovel of a house.

A voice that sound curiously like Quasipan's escaped one of the balloonfolk's lips: "At last our blood oath is fulfilled! Finally, we can live!"

"But they weren't counting on your deadly fascination with knives, were they?"

Before Finn even realized it, A skean span into existence in the palm of his hand. And the balloonfolk appeared gouged, and popped in turn.

"Without allies, without hope. The last human, enemy even to the most harmless and innocuous creatures, you are without a doubt the most evil being an Ooo. Nay, but had you not committed those awful, awful things, then still you would have suffered, since your fellow humans plunged the world into chaos before you yourself could rip the leg off an ant."

Finn stood dazed, frowning, as the skean in his palm spun and pointed itself at him.

"I want YOU to admit that your race, that your _life_, should end now, by your own hand. Of course, the planet would rather you and your evil brethren had never seen the light of day to begin with, but we can't be picky about the past, now _can we._"

Finn could only chuckle.

"What's so funny? Cracked at last?"

Finn sighed and shook his head. "You don't know almost everything, Quasipan. You don't know ANYTHING. At! Allllllllllllll!"

Quasipan hissed, feline slits darting left and right.

"This, this is a lame-o sword, my friend." Finn gripped and shattered it. He poked the paint with his free hand. "Heh heh."

Panic. "C-Cretin! FOOL! Knave, scoundrel, CRETIN! What of your campaign to skewer Princess Bubblegum's heart!?"

A figure vaguely resembling Ricardio the Heart Guy began to form from the gloop in his hand, but Finn gently molded it over and applied his own will. The erstwhile dagger transformed into a copy of his trusty beat-up sword.

"You can't skewer a heart, Quasipan. You can maybe mess with memories, but bonds of the heart are UNBEATABLE! And there's one person you forgot to factor into your lies—"

"Who, the Flame Princess whom you encased in eternal cryo-slumber, ICE KING!?"

The executioner's garb turned into the Ice King's blue robe, but Finn was more preoccupied with slashing away at the procession of frozen princesses Quasipan was parading before him.

"Haha, they all look way different than normal," Finn said as he dispelled Lumpy Space Princess, whose figment was lacking the star on her forehead. "Rush job, your godliness? Look , you even forgot to give Turtle Princess her crown, you patoot!"

Now it was Quasipan searching for a culprit. "Who!? Who is this person closest to your heart!? I'll eat that memory and spit it back at you!"

"It's…" Finn pointed his mind-sword skyward and hollered it out: ADVENTURE TIIIIIIIIIIME!"

Poof. Jake appeared at Finn's flank, still hovering in his meditation pose.


	4. Turnabout

**Part 4:**** Turnabout**

Finn flicked Jake on the ear, snapping him back to consciousness.

"Aha! I _knew_ the meditation would work!" said Jake.

"No, you lump, _I_ called _you_ into my head, said Finn.

Jake slumped over, sniffing for scents that weren't there. "…The house in your head is kind of loco, man. Creepy feelings all over me."

"Nah, it's just that cat's dumb stupid mojo that's loco. It's cool, we just gotta take my real inner world back."

"Why are you dressed up like Ice K—"

"I said, it's stupid mojo."

"Oh, right."

Quasipan curled up into a fetal ball in midair, claws extended. "Your best friend is your _DOG_!?"

"He's my SOUL BROTHER. In the flesh, sort of."

"Woof woof, baby."

"Yeah dawg~ Psycho-spirit body high five!"

"But I, I," Quasipan stammered. "Why, why? WHY? Why, why why why why why WHYYY? Just, die, human! You deserve it! You CRAVE it!" he accused wildly. "You're the last of your kind, the last miserable, mindless worm, alone on this forsaken rock, and yet you're so… HAPPY! It's not fair! DIE!"

"You can't kill me," Finn nodded matter-of-factly. "I'm NOT the last human!"

The dreamtide figment of Susan Strong appeared behind him, clasping his shoulders, lending him strength.

"And even if he were, that doesn't mean he's alone! I can tell you're lonely, and afraid of everything outside your know-how and understanding. But I bit my fears, chewed 'em up, and spat 'em out! Exhibit A!"

The figment of Marceline, laughing and in perfect health (as usual), appeared behind Jake with a punk rock guitar and a chip on her shoulder.

"Together we don't even need so much as a snap of the finger to defeat you! Though to be honest, I can think of a finger I'm keen to raise up at you right about now."

Marceline's mind-ink shade giggled at that. Susan just scratched her hood in confusion.

Ill comprehension dawned on the feline's face, and he teleported directly in front of the two. The rictus returned, slowly, and he pawed the sticky paint comprising Finn's bogus mind-house as though he were stamping out a cigarette. "Ah. I see, of course. The realm of the "heart" may not be an area of my exquisite expertise, but nevertheless, there can be no happiness without immense sacrifice. Magic spread across the planet once again only when the vermin known as humans were wiped out; and could magic not be said to be the planet's heart?"

"Get to the point, Lameness Princess…" Jake crossed his arms. "We don't gots all day to beat you up, you know."

"My point, is as follows: You are strong, Fred the Human Boy, because you have seen fit to shore up your _impurity_ by earning magical allies, like the piteous hound-no doubt through various vainglorious acts of valor. However, were I to sever those ties of friendship, those ties to a 'right to live' you may mistakenly cradle in your shuddersomely empty MICROSINGULARITY of a mind! … You would, at once, realize your place in the grand scope of things, and take your own life."

"I don't know what's more pathetic," said shade-Marceline as she re-tuned her shade-guitar. "That you think Finn's that weak, or that you think WE'RE that weak!"

"You said it, Jake's idea of how Marceline would respond!"

Shade-Susan grunted in agreement, for this is how Finn believed Susan would have responded.

"Your confidence is cute, but I have exhibited nowhere close to the full extent of my psychic powers. If this is to be a battle of wills, then it has been decided from the moment we met!"

"Couldn't agree more," said Jake.

Quasipan raised an eyebrow. "So you admit defeat?"

"No. I'm saying that if this is a battle of wills it won't even be a contest. You'll eat tar in a second, Puasiqan!"

"IT'S QUASIPAN!" the cat mewled heatedly.

Finn clutched his sides and wiped a tear from his eye. "I think this is the first time you've told a joke that's made me laugh more than it's made yourself laugh, Jake."

"Quasipan—we've got something a being of your _nigh all-encompassing intellect_,"—a pause for sarcastic effect—"can't begin to fathom."

"What, your _hearts_? Soon enough, those too will be within my grasp!"

"No, not heart—what kind of lame power is that, anyway? You lame-o," said Jake. "I'm talking about IMAGINATION! Your head's so full of sludge, you can't predict what intense bros like us will do."

"Yeah, not even WE can predict what intense bros like us are up to!" Finn karate jabbed the air. "See? No idea I'd do that."

"Here goes nothing!" Jake began to stretch his arm into a colossal fist.

"Dude, I thought you couldn't stretch anymore!" said Finn.

"My body can't. My physical body is still inside the spirit realm hairball world, right now my astral projection is inside your brain, so I can."

"Oh yeah, like in the Enchiridion where it says that," Finn lied.

"Batter up!" The fist turned into a catcher's mitt, just because, and Jake shot it out towards Quasipan, but he dodged easily.

"By the same token," Quasipan sneered, "if you want to injure me, this is the wrong venue to do so."

"So there's only one way to stop you…" Jake reasoned.

"That's right, returning to the hairball—"

"No, invading YOUR mind! C'mon, Finn, we've gotta knock him square on the face at the same time!"

"Why?"

"Just trust my gut!"

"But he can teleport, Jake!"

"Finn… how big is your mind?"

He picked his ear. "Not very, I don't think."

"The more you don't think, the better!" Jake sucked in a deep torrential breath and STRETCHED until he was huge. "All right, I can hold this size for about five minutes; I've just reduced the amount of space that cat's got to wiggle around—and every time he teleports, it's got to be a substantial drain on his reserve of mental energy, since constant teleportation has got to be at least a little jarring. When you've got a sure hit on your hands, tell me so I can punch him in unison with you. In the meantime, I'll be imagining up scenes from MY memories to match the stolen memories he'll throw at you."

Finn coated his sword with mind ink and conjured a bigger blade. "What if he uses his own memories as ammunition?"

"I have a feeling he doesn't want us to see his past at all, since he's a nuclear grade lame-o," Jake explained. "Which is why we've got to shift the battle into his own head—the part of his head that isn't connected to the spirit world, the moldy old _personal_ side of him he's seen fit to squirrel away into a dank corner. The part of his head he doesn't like."

"The _human_ part! Jake, that's brilliant! A lamer can't have awesome memories to attack us with, that's why he had to steal mine!"

Floating above, just out of reach, Quasipan spoke: "Who needs memories when I am a GOD!?"

Finn braced himself, waiting for his chance to strike. This wasn't going to be easy.

"I may not be able to fool you with false memories anymore—tiny, imbecilic FOOL brain notwithstanding—but with even just a fraction of my IMMENSE CORNUCOPIA OF INTELLECT, I can kill you with even your most MUNDANE memories, cretins!"

Finn waited patiently for the cat to make the first move. If Quasipan took the offensive, that would give Finn a tactical advantage, since he and Jake were working in concert.

"Fred, you brushed your teeth this morning after hash browns and muffins, yes?" Quasipan asked rhetorically.

"Uh… yeah, actually."

"It was cupcakes, dingus," corrected Jake. "I remember because I stuffed like, ninety, of them into my Everything Burrito."

"You're not going to say anything about how he got my _name_ wrong?"

"And then," Quasipan continued. "You flossed. Correct?"

"Uhhh…" Finn stopped to think. "Yeah, I flossed. Why?"

Mind-ink swelled in each of Quasipan's paws, forming a tiny shade of Finn brushing his teeth—a whooshy half-memory from five hours ago—in his right paw, while his left paw painted the same scene, only with floss.

"Were you aware, Fred, that if one extracts the specially treated Horixyminofletacine from that _Dentisparkles_ toothpaste the elephant named "Tree Trunks" recommended to you, and proceeds to puncture that chemical film with a strand of floss sharpened to a point by a Level 2 incantation of the aboriginal Yreoka people, that that simple combination of two everyday ingredients can trigger a humongous explosion affecting all but the most prepared?"

Quasipan's fangs flared evilly. "I don't believe there's a dog, magical or otherwise, that can survive such a blast from this proximity."

"Jake, shrink down!" Finn warned, but unfortunately for them, the Yreoka tribe raised fierce warriors, and their Level 2 Sharpening Incantation was a short one:

"DIE!"

Quasipan clapped, and the world boomed a silent deafening boom.


	5. The Great Clash of Memories

**Part 5: The Great Clash of Memories**

Of course, in the Yreoka tongue, "DIE!" meant "May the Demigod of Sharpening, Liwo, minister his blessings upon the spear of my fathers, and infuse his sky-dark blood into the pointy blade of this vaunted stabbing implement so that I might smite the infidel enemies of my primordial tribe, whose legitimacy to this land cannot be questioned by dint of divine providence." But this was not what Jake was concerned with.

How best to minimize a tremendous explosion without any time to think? It was simple, with the power of imagination: just recall the same moment over and over again. In other words—Finn flossing his teeth, times 51.

51 flossing shadow Finns popped into existence, only to be blown to smithereens a millisecond later, serving as a buffer against the lethal heatwave. However, since neither of them had to time to react, the BOOOM caused them both temporary deafness.

Despite the shock of seeing 51 clones of himself obliterated, Finn couldn't afford to drop his guard; Quasipan had, of course, teleported away from the blast radius, and, if Finn wasn't mistaken, there was no reason Quasipan couldn't pull the same stunt again.

Finn glanced at Jake's eyes, careful not to step on them as he shifted his stance atop Jake's gigantiform body and scanned the blank white sky of his mindspace. Without being able to hear each other speak for the moment, they'd have to show the cat just how strongly their brotherly bond truly resonated. No audio cues—only trust.

Jake racked his already exhausted brain for something to summon from their past that would neutralize any bombs or explosions. An ocean? No, that wouldn't cut it, and besides, Finn was deathly phobic of the ocean. What else could contain a BOOM…? Oh! Oh! What they needed now was a distraction.

_MEMORY OF…. BOOM BOOM MOUNTAIN!_

Jake's mind conjured up the image of baby Finn, crying and wallowing in his own boom boom.

"JAAAAKE!" Finn shouted, soundlessly. But he understood Jake's plan when Quasipan couldn't help but reveal his location by rolling on the floor—the midair floor, as it were—wallowing in his own tears of laughter. Apparently, when Quasipan was roaming the halls of Finn's memories, he hadn't reached that far back yet before Finn came to. Thank the lucky heavens for that.

Finn exercised his own will and, steeling his resolve against evil, a Never Ending Pie Throwing Robot came into being, attached to the top of his head and grasping onto his flowing locks as he dodged a volley of knives (Jake countered with another flotilla of flossing Finns).

Square in the face with a dozen pies! Who's laughing now, huh, Quasipan?

Jake used this opportunity to really think up what could save them from an explosion, and finally arrived at the answer: The more embarrassing the memory, the more it would throw Quasipan off.

_SUMMON: THE MAGICAL ARMOR OF ZELDERON!_

Finn's Ice King robe finally dissipated, the fabric transmuting into indestructible steel. And… a sizable bust cavity.

Quasipan spewed what pie he'd swallowed down. The perfect chance to strike!

Jake created a hovering platform—Quasipan's own personal UFO seat!—and Finn kicked it off to fly up and deliver the deciding blow.

But a chill overcame the entire battlefield, and a scabby hand blocked Finn's swipe.

The Never Ending Pie Throwing Robot's pies rotted and fell away mid-trajectory, and the contraption atop Finn's head fell into a deep funk at the sight of the, the

THE LICH KING!

Finn's blade left him as the Lich King ate it. Finn's big chance fell away, gravity reasserting its harsh ubiquity.

_SUMMON: ANCIENT PSYCHIC TANDEM WAR ELEPHANT!_

Jake called upon the war elephant to occupy the Lich King indefinitely. The two cosmic-level beings took to the apex and locked themselves in mortal combat. Jake wiped the sweat from his brow—who knew how long he could keep this up? He was running out of mental energy, and it was tough to keep his body giant when his mind was focused on countering Quasipan's attacks.

Then, an idea: Hey! Why not just use the Glasses of Nerdicon to make himself omniscient? Well, they were too small for him now, so he'd settle for placing them on Finn.

The Glasses of Nerdicon appeared over Finn's eyes, but they had no effect. The things they were summoning were just figments of the imagination; they didn't actually have the properties of their real life counterparts. Fiddleflicks!

Banking on Jake's mental exhaustion, Quasipan capitalized on Jake's flub and psyched himself up, marshalling his remaining mental energies to summon yet another copy of the Lich King—how lucky, to have the memories of a brash adventurer to draw from!

However, an even scarier aberration appeared at Finn's side—one that put the Lich King to shame! The dread beast was a grotesquery none of them had ever seen, all mouths and eyes and evil organs without names.

Finn looked down and into Jake's eyes; Jake simply shrugged. _He_ hadn't summoned it.

Quasipan's idea of how the Lich King would react was the same as he himself would react, and that idea took effect—the figment of the Lich King wrapped itself into a fetal position at the sight of something he couldn't understand.

That's when shade-Susan Strong bounced up off Jake's titanic tubby belly and, flying up over the frightened cat, bonked Quasipan on the head with a karate chop, before Jake could even go "Ooof!"

The grotesquery at their side transformed back into shade-Marceline. "Now's your chance!"

Her words came through loud and clear despite Jake's deafness—through his mind's ear. However, shade-Marceline didn't know this, and she started stamping on Jake's forehead, since that's how Jake thought the real Marceline would behave. "C'mon, shrink down and I'll fly you up!"

Jake understood innately and shrunk down into shade-Marceline's arms. Finn held onto her other arm, and along with Never Ending Pie Throwing Robot they shot up to Quasipan's level—Finn, of course, making sure to aim the pies right into Quasipan's face once again.

Quasipan began to steam with pure rage, but it was too late. Jake and Finn's fists had already clobbered him on each of his eyes—Jake's fist, maybe a little bigger than necessary to enact his plan.

Now Finn understood Jake's cunning ploy: the eyes were the windows to the soul!

All the figments and mind-ink stayed behind inside Finn's head as he and Jake invaded Quasipan's inner world through his eyes. It was time to take back the mind-scenery Quasipan robbed from Finn, and end this once and for all!


	6. Mirror Match

**Part 6:** **Mirror Match**

Finn and Jake flew through the psychic tunnel between minds, gums flapping and shadows dancing.

"G-goggles, Finn! So he can't hit us in the eyes and turn the battle right back into either of our minds!"

Finn recalled that one time he messed about PB's lab and accidentally created an eye monster that could only be defeated by a pair of indestructible goggles. "Goggles! T-two pairs!"

Just as they slammed through the end of the portal—tailing Quasipan into his own mindscape—the goggles materialized around Finn and Jake's eyes.

Quasipan crashed head-first against the outer wall of the circular tower that comprised Finn's memories. Inside each door of the winding hallway within the tower lay a moment of Finn's history Quasipan had hoarded to decorate his own mind.

The tailless cat slid down against the tower bricks before falling away and landing hard onto the blank floor—once again head first. _Glad it's not my actual head getting bashed in_, panted Quasipan, mentally tuckered out.

_But the human and the dog's minds withstood even more stress than mine, I need only exploit their fatigue with another bomb and then they'll never catch a glimpse of my…_

The cat knew before he even lifted his head.

Far from the brink of collapse, Finn and Jake were keeping each other on their toes.

"I'm looking _fine_ with these goggles!" boasted Jake. "You look like a _nerd_."

"But you can't stretch out your eyes along with the rest of you when you expand as long as you have those on. So you'll be a tiny-eyed giant."

"Or even a cyclops!" laughed Jake.

"Oh, do a cyclops, do a cyclops!" Finn clapped his knees giddily in anticipation.

Jake's eyes fused into one, and he grew a fleshy bludgeon and loincloth before blowing up to titanic size once again. But the cycloptic eye stayed the same size, because of the goggles.

"Haha, Jake, you look dope."

"The good kind or the bad kind of 'dope'?"

"Mmm… both!"

"You just need your noggin patched up so you can appreciate my handsome bod." Jake grasped the roof of Finn's memory tower and shook the structure in his palm.

"Wait, dude, my memories might get jumbled up!"

"Oh yeah. Sorry. Heh heh."

"Which reminds me… where's Quasipan's own hizzaps?" asked Jake, scanning the mind space beyond the tower. Everything else looked blank; there wasn't even any detail on the "ground" they were standing on—no grass to tread on, no sun to beam down. Just an expanse of white nothingness.

"It's a bit blurry, but from this high up I think I see some figures in the horizon, Finn. That must be the place Quasipan doesn't want us to see: his own personal emotional _junk_, if you catch my meaning."

"Quasipan must have teleported off there to seal it off from us," Finn reasoned.

"He can't expel _two_ different people out of his mind; together as a team, we've got the psychic priority. We have no choice but to hold on here for as much time as it takes you to shove all your lost memories back into your own head. You raid the tower and take back what's yours, I'll dash off to keep Quasipan occupied. Without control of the tower, he can't attack me with your memories, he can only use his own."

The giant tiny-eyed goggly cyclops dog let out a giant tiny-eyed sigh.

"What is it, dude? I thought you'd love the opportunity to finally be the guy who lays out the really smart schemes, that _I_ screw up," Finn teased.

"Ah, it's nothing. It's just that, you know? It always comes down to dogs versus cats, in the end."

"If you say so, partner. No giddy-yap, fast as you can!"

Finn slapped Jake on the ankle, and Jake sprinted off into the horizon, woofing all the while.

"All right, time to holler at the edge of my butt and FREAK OUT at my own adventures." Finn pushed open the tower door and started up the spiral staircase to the first floor hallway, cautiously probing for traps.

Meanwhile, Jake bolted towards Quasipan as fleet of foot as he could, stretching his strides out harder and faster with each bound. He knew Quasipan would catch on soon, but since this dimension of personal recollection was quite distinct from the cortex connected to the Spirit World, the cat's advantage of APPROXIMATE WORLD KNOWLEDGE was much weaker here. Nevertheless, Quasipan could still summon a shade from his _recent_ memory to halt Jake's advance. Deducing that Quasipan was incapable of producing a copy of himself (if he could he would have done so already), that meant that his only recourse was…

A shade that could hold Jake off with absolute certainty. _Jake himself._

"Hey, brother. What's up with the goggles?"

The shade clone of Jake popped into existence touching wet snouts.

Shade-Jake looked just like him, apart from his eyes being a little too far apart—recollection is never perfect, after all, not even Quasipan's. However, there was something else that seemed off. The mannerisms, the speech pattern, nothing about shade-Jake hit the mark because Quasipan didn't know him well enough. This was a poor imitation, a first blush caricature of Jake.

"Duuuuuuuude." Shade-Jake rolled over and scratched his ear, a stereotypical dumb dog. "Let's, like, chill the glob out, yo. I'll pick off all your fleas."

Quasipan conveniently forgot the trifling detail that the Jake of his recent scuffle was hell-bent on defeating him, and managed to outwit him.

"I do NOT talk like that," said Jake. "And I don't _chill out._ I party haRD FOREVEEEER!"

Jake had mental energy enough to imagine up only one more thing, and he knew just the thing to fuel his upcoming mindless party attack.

"A disco ball?" Shade-Jake's eyes doubled in size as he chased every little speck of light.

"That cat's opinion of me must be pretty low…" Jake cracked his knuckles and limbered up. "Time to show him I can defeat you without a sweat, all while NEVER MISSING A STEP OF MY BREAKDANCE."

"Oh yeah? You're putting a real cramp in my style, duuuuuude. Can you defeat me if I grow THIS BIG?"

Since Quasipan had no idea where Jake's limit was, shade-Jake grew to mountainous size, but cast no shadow.

Jake gaped up at his simulacrum and gulped. "Well… maybe _one _step of my breakdance."


	7. The Tower of Journeys Past

**Part 7:** **The Tower of Journeys** **Past**

Leaning against the tower's interior wall, Finn psyched himself up with a deep breath, raised his torch, and pried open the first memory-door he came across.

"What the…"

Every door Finn entered contained a memory that, having been plucked from his brain seemingly at random, couldn't fail to rattle him.

"I ate a little computer?"

The scene played out over and over like a rewinding tape. Inside the room's psychic expanse, Jake sat on a branch of a cyberpalm of the Silicon Jungle, dared Finn to eat the skittering computer-bug, Finn burped, and his speech became autotuned. In mid-laughter, the Finn and Jake on the cyberpalm branch would then sort of glitch out as the scene returned to Jake sitting on the branch, with all the subsequent events happening in more or less the same fashion, but with some subtle changes. Finn remembered what PB told him once: Every time a person recalls a memory, they are in fact erasing the previous data and replacing it with an entirely new recollection that approximates the deleted memory closely, but not precisely. That meant that if he didn't want the memory he'd be retrieving to become substantially corrupted over its playthroughs, he'd need to restore it in his own mind as soon as possible.

The problem was that Finn didn't know if he'd remember what had happened in this mindspace once his real body woke up. And he definitely wanted to remember he was capable of singing in autotune!

Finn lifted his protective goggles and gulped. Strange as it sounded, it was the only surefire way. He'd have to scoop up all the scenes inside the rooms of the tower—back into his _eyes._

Finn stepped inside and knelt his head down, wondering whether this was just stupid. Thankfully, these weren't his _real_, physical eyes… but still. It was weird.

He hoped the memories weren't independent now, that they wouldn't object to getting sucked back into Finn's brain, as he touched his eyes to the floor of the memory-room (occupied by the memory of the Silicon Jungle's fiber optic grass) and vacuumed up the mind-ink of the scene.

In actuality, it was no stranger a sensation than refamiliarizing oneself with some nostalgic token of one's past. In fact, the whole affair was surprisingly pleasant. Finn smiled, the last dreg of this particular memory firmly reconquered and sloshing in his psyche. Now, at the very least, come what may, he knew he could whistle like a robot!

Finn reclaimed a dozen more memories, door by door; it occurred to him that the cat was probably aiming for the happier memories to add to his collection. Finn feverishly unwrapping a birthday present from PB (which turned out to be a new sword with a compass as its pommel); Finn beating Jake at Card Wars; their encounter with the legendary hero of heroes Billy, and so on.

However, Finn knew it was only a matter of time before he happened in on a room containing a memory he might not want to take back. Something embarrassing, or maybe even horrifying—Quasipan did seem to loathe humanity, after all, so it would make sense if he made off with a memory or two that cast a human in a bad light. When it came to it, would Finn be man enough to do as he should and take even the memories he might like to forget?

And what if some of these memories were false leads? "Memories" fabricated by Quasipan to lead Finn astray? Finn quickly ruled out that possibility—Quasipan had harbored no intention of ever letting a foreign consciousness inside his own mind, that much was extremely clear.

His thoughts strayed on how Jake was faring when he opened the door to the 14th memory-room, and his jaw dropped.

This was not a happy memory.

"Oh… no." Finn knew exactly what he was looking at.

It was _that_ day, that fateful night.

The Finn in the memory inside the room bragged "I bet I can kill that evil witch in under a minute!"

"A minute's pushing it, buddy, what with all those magicks," said Jake. "But if you insist, you really had better do her in quick, or else she really might hurt those poor lemurs."

The Finn outside the memory-room shook his head, and he felt sick at his own past self's rashness. _Of course_ the witch would play dead after he said something so stupid. And he learned later, after the two had left the forest entirely, that the witch had waited for that moment to fly back up and capture the lemurs. It was one of Finn's most gut-wrenching regrets.

Finn slammed the door shut. _I'll… come back later. Yeah._

Finn bit his lip and did his best to shove the incident from his mind with that lame pretext, but not even three more happy memory-rooms could stifle his guilt.

"I can tell you which rooms you'll want to open," a slithery voice sliced through the hush.

"Ahh!"

A snakey little worm bit into Finn's sock as he plodded up the next flight of stairs ascending the tower.

"Greetings. I'm a psychic worm. You probably don't remember my kind."

Finn balked. "This is probably some trap, isn't it? Some whack mind trap. You're a trap!"

"Enter through the next door over and see for yourself the truth of what I claim," said the tiny caterpillary slitherbug.

Finn mustered his courage and opened the next memory-room. The memory snapped back at the sight of the scene playing and replaying inside the room.

The giant king mind worm waggled its psychic rays and commanded Finn and Jake to hug him unto eternity.

"Ohhh. Right." The Finn outside closed the door and screamed a little inside.

"Heads up, you probably would have been better off simply trusting me."

"What… what do you want?" asked Finn.

"I thought you'd never ask." The snakeworm smoothly inched up Finn's leg. "It's elementary. I've grown bored of inhabiting this cat's mind, and I seek a new dwelling. However, I'm too weak to invade your mind without your volition. So the deal is this: I tell you which doors to avoid, and in exchange you let me inside your mind afterwards."

"And if I don't honor my word?"

"You have to; judging by these rooms, you're a _hero._"

"No. Your offer licks pits, I refuse it."

"Why?" the worm asked absently.

"A hero faces his mistakes and accepts them! I'll get back to the bad rooms… it'll just take me a little more time."

"You greatly underestimate the toll they'll take on you, child." And the worm left it at that.

Soon enough, Finn came across another bad room—the memory of when he nearly died from the poison a decoy "victim" Jake had warned him not to fall for. That was one agonizing weekend, with Jake taking care of his wounds while trying to mask his disappointment in him.

"Ehm… we'll absorb that one later, too." Finn blushed with embarrassment.

"Three doors, you've passed. Three contemptible, unworthy doors."

"I said I'll get them… later…"

Suddenly, the air in the tower had gotten… hazy? Thick?

"There is no 'later.' By spurning three bad memories, those _ordeals_ have caught on that you won't be taking any of them. The tower, _your_ tower is offended."

The resentful memories leaked out of the offending doors like a clinging gas, eager to scar.

"AAAAAAH!" The revulsion was literally palpable. Finn found himself quaking, and he wrung his hat's ear things, sweating profusely.

"Now's your chance! Make the deal with me! I promise I'll only _ever_ be nibbling at your mental energy!"

"No!" Finn punched himself in the arm. Enchiridion, page 17: a hero never turns tail from danger.

"The shock of absorbing so much…. _horror_ all at once, let's just say it won't be pretty," the wormy snake hissed gleefully. "If you don't want your mind pummeled into a miserable pancake, simply take me in your hand, and you'll be awake with just your happy memories, and fit as a fiddle. Where's the harm? Quasipan practically did you a favor!"

"Ahhh!" Finn barely dodged the point of a gnarled horn as another plume of bad-memory gas began to form into a scene where Finn got gored by an angry manticore's scorpion stinger. More of the scene came into view: Finn got gored, and failed to save an innocent butterfly from the evil beast's hunger!

The snakeworm's offer was tempting. It coiled on Finn's shoulder confidently, as the boy stared agape at the image of himself getting impaled over and over, mingling with all the other foul recollections pouring into being in the hallway Finn was now trapped in. His stomach churned; that scene over there, was that him knocking over a candy citizen's snowcone and forgetting to repay him afterwards? It didn't matter _why_ he was rushing off, that was shameful! And _that_, was that him killing PB's prized flowers through negligence!?

"I… I…" Finn's head hung, he couldn't take it anymore. He was only 12, why _should_ he have to relive such a horrid parade of failures? It wasn't fair anyway, that his life turned out like this!

_NO!_

His warrior's heart beat frantically. _NO!_

_You overcame the last obstacles; you even persevered when you were led to believe you were a heartless monster!_

Doubt clanged: But that was when I knew that memory was fake! All these memories are **genuine!**

Finn clutched his heart. He had to decide.

_Search your true self, Finn._

…Search your true self? What did that mean?

"Hurry it up, guy," the snakeworm on his shoulder groused. "You're my ticket out of here."

Search my true self…

It clicked.

Finn picked the snakeworm.

"Excellent! Smart choice, now if you'll just say the words 'I waive all rights to evict this worm from my'—OOF!"

Finn jammed the worm in his pants pocket.

"Heyyy, what's the big idea?" came the worm's muffled cry.

"Shush! I'm still rescuing you, isn't that enough?"

"You mean…?"

Finn addressed the burgeoning cloud of nightmare memories. "Whatever bad things I may have done, it doesn't matter! They're still a part of me!"

And with just those words, Finn unlocked the key of the true hero in his heart.

Some part of Finn knew that adventuring was, in a way, running from oneself. The constant pursuit of new friends and new lands and new everything, wasn't it partly about _forgetting_? For all his bravado in battle, Finn was, in the end, a 12-year-old human boy. A 12-year-old boy who sometimes felt lonely and lost in a world he didn't really understand.

But now he held his head up high and proud. That false memory Quasipan had attempted to foist on him was silent because it lacked the ring of truth; it was a far-flung fantasy. Now, however, all his darkest days were clamoring and sounding off, real and raw as the moments they happened-and Finn closed his eyes serenely and threw his arms wide open to all of them in acceptance, without a trace of fear. Betraying reality, the consequences of his choices, would be betraying himself, the very core of himself. "This is me!" he shouted triumphantly.

The violent, awful memories froze, and began to gently lift at the edges like a piece of paper held against a breeze before funneling back into Finn's mind through his eyes, a sideways tornado. All the doors Finn hadn't reached cracked open as those memories barreled over into their master's embrace entirely of their own accord; it was as though Finn now exerted some magnetic force after his charismatic epiphany.

The tower faded away entirely, but Finn didn't fall to the floor. There was no floor. _He _was the anchor here.

"Preeetty impressive." Finn patted himself on the head.

"You won't remember it, though. Your little epiphany. When you wake up, it'll have vanished from your memory."

"My _head_ will forget. My heart won't."

The worm wriggled free of his pocket and hissed, "I've never seen a _heart_ capable of manipulating minds and stealing secrets, you moronic—"

"Shhhh. Bask in the glow."

Finn's hat fell away, bleeding into the white expanse.

"And your friend?"

"He'll be fine."

The mountain-sized shade-Jake stomped on the horizon. Finn kicked back to watch.


	8. The Doppelganger Dance

**Part 8:**** The Doppelganger Dance**

The monstrous silhouette of Jake's doppelganger loomed hazily, a colossus grumbling dully in the distance.

Quasipan prowled the streets of his memory-town with an almost wistful sigh. Inside each of the buildings and towers offered a peek into his past; his past as a normal cat.

In this world, this space inside Quasipan's mind, there were no shadows under which to conceal the truth. A brain could lie to itself to some extent, but not a brain that fancied itself nearly omniscient.

Summoning the figment of the shapeshifting dog had eaten up the very last of Quasipan's psychic stamina; he could no longer fight the intruders. In abject desperation, the only thing left for Quasipan was preserving his fragile ego, no matter what.

But, though he wracked his massive mind, he could find no answer. Even an artisan of godlike talent would still fail without any resources to work with. Quasipan's brain was already groaning for sleep, there was simply no way he could even so much as escape the invaders' harrying with peace of mind, let alone expel them.

And then the plan hatched, willy-nilly, and Quasipan bore his twisted smile once more.

He would sit, in plain sight, and deliberately fill his heart with insane amounts of darkness, dwelling only on the bad, disregarding the good. And then delightful darkness would seep into this plane and wrap everything in it.

Now Quasipan understood, the horrible power of a _heart._

* * *

"Uhhh… I don't suppose Quasipan gave me the benefit of the doubt when it came to fair duels?" Jake squeaked.

**"You smart talk too much,"** boomed giant shade-Jake. **"I don't like big words."**

"Oh come oooon, what the hell did a dog ever do to you!?" Jake pounded on the floor in a vain attempt to wound Quasipan's brain. "Lousy… no-good… Hmmph!" he huffed, arms crossed.

**"Like, chill out, maaaan. You need to take a nap or something. I can't scratch your belly at this size so I'm just going to step on you, and hope that works."**

Suddenly, an idea. Jake knew he couldn't exactly defeat his clone in a fisticuffs brawl. No, the ticket to success here would be… _mind games_.

Jake shrunk back down to normal size and narrowed his eyes accusatorily. "Prove you're me."

**"…Huh?"**

"You're Jake the dog, aren't you?"

**"I thought my name was Blake."**

Grrrrrrrr! "Well, it's not. It's Jake. Cool guys are named Jake, lamers are named Blake, got it?"

**"Maybe my name is Ca-"**

"Don't you even go there, pal."

**"Well, I know I'm a dog. Like you! Let's play!"** Shade-Jake began panting and wagging his enormous tail.

Ugh. This was getting Jake nowhere. Time to try a different angle.

"Whatever. Are you aware that you're simply the figment of someone's imagination?"

**"Again with the big words."**

"You're not _real_. Dude."

**"Wait, if I'm not real, then doesn't that mean… You're not real, either?**

"Nope.

"Oh. I guess you're right."

Shade-Jake instantly crumpled into singularity of mind-ink.

"Haha! I didn't miss a single step of my breakdance. _Because I didn't even have to take a single step to begin with!_ I believe the big word you're searching for is: BADASS._"_

Jake faced away: cool guys don't look at explosions.


	9. Shade City

**Part 9:**** Shade City**

Finn floated on over towards Jake, the psychic snakeworm sitting atop his blonde locks wriggling uncomfortably at the sight of the bubble of pure darkness leavening in Quasipan's memory-city.

"Whoa! Hey man, fetch all your memories yet? How'd you learn to fly?"

"Never mind, tell you later-you wanna let's get out?" asked Finn.

"Sure, if you want to, let's just butt heads and will ourselves back out into reality."

"Nah," Finn reneged, lazily kicking the air. "I think we should roll up our sleeves and see if we can't destroy that evilness o'er yonder."

"You shameless goody goody."

"Blame your dad for snatching me up from my boom boom. Ha ha."

"Are you two _up your Globhole_?" shouted the snakeworm. "You already got everything you came for!"

Finn shook his head. "One day you'll understand. Probably during your first act of heroics."

"Pah. You can keep your heroics. Just know this: If you lose to the darkness, you'll be swallowed up into Quasipan's merciless brain without a hope for escape!"

Finn and Jake looked at each other. And giggled.

"How many times have we heard that now?" asked Jake. "Evil masterminds always have a deficiency of imagination. Hopeless situations are cake for us."

"Because we're…"

Their arms locked, hearts as one-

"AWESOOOOME!"

Finn patted the worm condescendingly. "Keep your eyes open and you might learn a thing or two. About LIFE and lifey things."

"Hmph. We'll see. But don't expect any help from THIS end! You flesh-mammals!"

"Well there's a new one," said Jake. "So? Shall we put the cat out to wash?"

Finn grinned irrepressibly. "Hop on my back."

And with giddy confidence, together they shot off into the darkness.

* * *

Quasipan's mind-city, its turrets and walls and houses, all gleamed abyssal black, coated as they were with raw malice. Shades of all sizes and shapes flitted across the information-fog, guardian apparitions of ill will and suffering. Whatever nugget of goodness Quasipan came across during his sinister meditation, he crushed, arranging the dust into a tableau of aimless horrors. Anything, anything to repel the heroes—he would even paint life as nothing but hell. He would cough up his own heart and infect it just to become a contagion to be avoided, a pariah to be shunned.

Nobody could peek into his past. He wouldn't allow it. No, better to consign himself to a future as a _malevolent_ god, a pure demon, than to admit his weakness.

Quasipan's cat eyes snapped open.

"ALL IS HORRIBLE, ALL IS DESTITUTE AND CRUEL. BUT NONE MORE SO THAN YOU, FINN THE HUMAN!"

Finn flew overhead with Jake on his shoulders and the worm on his hair. "Man, Quasipan, this is just silly. So emo."

Quasipan drooled with rehearsed hate. "You won't just die, HUMAN. You think I want your pathetic memories? I will devour you like the ant you are, and history will FORGET you. I'll send you and your kind to the oblivion you deserve!"

"Dude, I've literally gone to Hell and back. I'm 12 and I've seen more than you, your godliness."

The midnight shades launched through the air, axes and snouts and wings and meteors roaring.

"You have seen much, but never in your juvenile cluelessness have you absorbed the GRAND PORTRAIT of life! The rotten core of everything!"

"Pay attention, Wormy, I'll show you just how shallow all his bleating is!"

The shadows reared hungry, but Finn sliced them all in two with a single slick motion.

"The crumbly sword!" said Jake.

"It's not crumbly. It's _experienced._"

Quasipan teleported up to them, upside-down and smiling, with a sword of tempered magic clasped in his own mouth. "Have you heard of the Blade of Radiros, human?"

"Uhhh… No."

"A dwarven blacksmith forged this unbreakable sword using the blood and bones of all the orphans he could. At its sharpest, it rent clean through the ice shelf of the South Pole."

"Oh, is that all?"

"This is not a figment." Quasipan smiled so wide he bore his upside-down fangs. "This is the real Blade of Radiros."

"And?"

"The sword is so sharp the only safe place I could put it was inside my own head. There's nothing you can do to stop a real sword in a psychic space."

"See me tremble?"

"It's not surprising that a being so bereft of intelligence should feel no fear."

"Whatever, guy, bring it. I'm feeling a mite cocky today."

"I'll make you regret not turning tail and fleeing the first chance you got! HUMAN!"

They clashed. Finn yawned. It was over in a second. The Blade of Radiros shattered like china.

"Wh… WHAT!?"

Fear dawned on his face as the cat looked over his shoulder at the boy who bested his trump card so effortlessly. "HOW!?"

"It's not the power of the blade that matters, Quasipan. It's the power of the hilt."

The cat's eyes darted to Finn's hand. There was another hand on his! The dog's!

"Why so shocked? It's simple. Our light was stronger than your darkness."

"Stronger than my darkness!? But… but I know ALLLLL!"

"He's throwing a fit again." Jake rolled his eyes. "Cats."

"Actually, 'stronger' isn't the right word. 'More substantial.' It's easy to lose sight when you think you know everything," replied Finn simply. "When everything's black and white."

Finn snapped his fingers, and the shadows crawling around the mind-city surrendered to color once more.

"This was never the 'grand portrait of life'—this was a gloomy kid's sketch in black crayon."

"And you know that better than anybody else," Jake accused.

Quasipan's fur bristled with fear. They… they were going to humiliate him! They were going to invade his secret memories!

Quasipan's mind-city rumbled like an earthquake as he fell apart. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

"Poor kitty."

"He'll recover. He just needs to be grounded a little," said Jake. "Nice catch on the decision to come here, by the way, we totally destroyed an evil sword."

"That was just icing on the cake, man! All right, let's go."

Huh?

…They were just going to leave? No lording it over him? No cackling and pointing?

"No! Wait!"

"C'mon, man, there's no way you've got any ammo left now," said Jake dismissively.

"No! I…" Quasipan swallowed his pride. "I… want to show you my past."


	10. History of an Alien Cat

**Part 10: History of an Alien Cat**

_Quasi, age 2, dining with mama and papa while their craft orbited Earth._

_His kitten tail snaked around his chair leg as he pawed at his synthesized tuna disinterestedly._

_"Quasi, if you don't eat your supper—" Papa began._

_Quasi gazed intently down at the mysterious blue orb, so many thousands and millions of miles beyond his grasp. "Mommy, what's that crater on the Earth's surface?"_

_"An eyesore," she said. "Pass the salt, dear."_

_Papa proved more informative. "Do you remember when I told you how the humans used to keep our noble species enslaved in feeding cages?"_

_Quasi met his father's slit eyes, seeking to understand. But he was too young._

_Mama rolled her eyes. "Not this again."_

_"That crater was the result of the folly of humans, who kept the secret of magic bottled up as long as possible. But that blew up in their silly ape faces, didn't it?" Papa stabbed another mackerel with his claws. "Everytime you look at the Earth, remember how humans wounded the world."_

_Quasi's father was a dour, pontificating man, but he was not unkind. At Mama's request, he pushed off his chair and floated over to close the blinds._

_It was tough enough enjoying a square meal in a zero gravity chamber _without_ long-winded history lessons interrupting everything._

* * *

Quasipan led the two wary adventurers up the stairs to the next memory-door he wished to show them.

"As you can see, our family was quite wealthy, amongst the wealthiest in the cat colony. We could afford to sit around and pick at our salmon. Yet I still pined for Earth."

Despite himself, Finn was growing genuinely interested in the cat's life story.

Quasipan continued. "But my father's relentlessly negative interpretation of recent history started shaping my thoughts. I became secretly disgusted in myself for yearning to stretch my legs out and dash across a rolling meadow down on Earth. And even after my psychic abilities came to bear, my own mental block forbade me to envision any good humans might have done. I apologize."

Quasipan suddenly stopped and sighed. "To think the last human alive would be quite the fantastic specimen indeed."

Saying nothing, Finn simply stroked the cat's fur. Quasipan purred instinctively, and Jake laughed when Quasipan realized with an "AH!" what he'd done.

"Don't be embarrassed. It's natural!"

"I'm weak," Quasipan cried, struggling to maintain his composure. "I'm a loser."

* * *

_Quasi had liked frequenting the library, though it did get a tad noisy when kittens would prank each other with muttered magic, causing bookmarks to disappear and the like._

_But recently, a different kind of noise had prevented him from perusing very often. In such a quiet setting, the stray half-thoughts of others engrossed in study would always invade his own mind soon enough._

_So here he was, in front of the Dean in his office._

_"You're a bright one, Quasi, but nevertheless you're still required to fulfill a certain number of hours of study in the library a week. It's part of your coursework."_

_He couldn't admit he was psychic; the stigma would kill him. "Yes, I understand, it's just… I draw stares, sir. It's unsettling. And I don't even know why everybody stares at me like that."_

_"I haven't the foggiest idea, either," the Dean said hastily._

_Quasi's eyes narrowed. "You do know why."_

_"Why, I say, boy, don't get short with—"_

_Quasi found himself pounding the desk. "Why is it!? Sir," he added._

_"I… You!..."_

_Though reasonably wealthy, Quasi had no real friends, only acquaintances. And… and if he pried into the Dean's mind, he'd finally understand why._

_The cat furrowed his brow and focused his mind onto his target's. The stress caused blood to spurt out of Quasi's nose. After a few seconds of an odd tunneling sensation, Quasi snapped back to preserve his own psyche, and reeled with the information he managed to scoop out._

_The Dean stood dazed, but Quasi was furious._

_"The Longtail Club!?"_

_The Dean and the Vice Principal of the Academy Craft both belonged to families of privilege that rivaled Quasi's father in the synthesized fish market. So they colluded to insinuate rumors amongst the student body that the long tails of Quasi and his father actually proved they had made some illicit pact with some demon of fortune. The "Longtail Club" stood as a vigilant society of students who monitored the movements of such unscrupulous rogues. It was a conspiracy to sabotage Quasi's later chances at success, and they were poisoning students' minds just to get at his dad through him!_

_"Unbelievable! You've been sewing slander against me since I was _9_!?"_

_"But… I… how did you?"_

_"All those kittens skulking in the corners of my eyes, all this time, they were SPYING on me? And to think I tried to respect their privacy! What a sham! Why should I hide anything, now? I'm better than all of you!" Quasi screeched petulantly. "I refuse to live in secrecy, in shame, any longer! I'm PSYCHIC!"_

_"…You're what, now?"_

_Quasi pushed off against the desk and stormed through the office door into the spaceship's maze of halls, lost in rage._

_Eventually, however, the indignation ebbed, and he was left only with the horrid conclusion that he'd be alone forever, reviled and suspected as a demon._

_The cat longed only for someone he could relate to. But there was nobody in the colony who possibly could._

_But the blue planet outside glinted with possibility._

* * *

"Subsequently, I steeled my resolve to live on Earth, and left my parents a note before manning an escape pod. It was the cowardly thing to do, but I didn't think I could stomach their disappointment."

"Couldn't you have just told them about the conspiracy?" asked Jake. They rounded the corner up the stairs towards a memory-door a few floors above.

"They would have never believed me. Why do you think I enrolled in that academy in the first place? My father and the Dean were cordial business associates. Papa harbored no ill will towards him. So to my parents it would have sounded as though I was making up outlandish excuses for my own failures."

"Harsh, bro."

"Why didn't you come to Earth sooner?" asked Finn.

"Apart from all the other reasons, you mean?" Quasipan snipped a little wearily. "I'd never known true gravity, none of us had. We were frail and thin, with no way of fending off against the elements in any realistic Earth-like setting. In fact, my first year on Earth was one of suffering. I didn't think I could withstand life here for much longer until that fateful day."

"You mean when you…?"

Finn glanced at the spot where Quasipan's tail ought to have been.

"I was emaciated, living on alms—hardly the proud jungle cat I imagined myself being. At times the Cosmic Owl would flash before my eyes, and fear would paralyze me. I didn't want to die, not when there was so much more to see, to do, to _learn_. I wanted to become a being beyond reproach, and show them all. So when a spirit genie made the offer, I signed the pact and offered my tail in exchange for a treasure trove of knowledge. Looking back, it's quite ironic—you could say I really did become a demon."

"Not a demon… more like just a bad guy," said Finn reassuringly.

"You were right, Finn. Your clear hero's insight was more accurate than any statement I've ever made: When I swallowed the big picture, it left my sight."

"Hey! You finally got my name right! You can't be a loser now."

Quasi smiled and patted his chest, his heart.

"I thank you—both of you—from the bottom of… well, you know. Now, what say we go enjoy a fresh breeze in the real world again?"

Finn wanted to tell Jake something, but before he could, his head became full of fuzzies, and the white warmth invaded his psyche. Next thing he knew, he was back on the Meerkat Plains—back in reality.


	11. Fin

**Part 11:**** Fin**

Finn and Jake's bodies became conscious once again, expelled from Quasipan's mind entirely (the hairball dimension was a pocket of the spirit world, but ultimately still connected to Quasipan's brainspace). Quasipan had been able to expel all three of their psychic avatars out of his head because they were now a "group" linked by bonds of the heart.

Jake kicked up and rubbed the soul off his body blearily. "Huh. Guess we won."

"I thought there was never any doubt?" said the snakeworm.

"Uhhh. What is this thing?" Jake stared at the worm with his puppy eyes. "Good Glob. Not another psychic worm to deal with," he whined. "I'm pooped, man."

Finn seemed to have some juice left in him. "Come on, Jake, you're not the unstoppable dynamo of this duo, not me. …Oh shnikes, Jake, there was something I meant to tell you, but I forgot what it was!"

"Hope the cat didn't eat a chunk out of your brain or something. Not that it would actually—"

"—Change much, yes, hilarious, Jake."

"Ahem," the worm cleared its throat. "While immersed in Quasipan's mindspace, you came to want to tell the dog the following: "We're way excellent, homedog."

"No need to tell me that," bragged Jake. "No one knows better than I do!"

"Now I must take my leave," the worm intoned as he inched away. A pause. He held his head up high. "I'm off to be a hero now."

"No besnizzles?" asked Finn, flabbergasted. He'd made a psychic worm want to take up the hero's life? "Whoa, I'm like a… _role model_ or something! That's _bedonk!_"

"Hold your horses, buddy, maybe it was _me,_" said Jake.

"No, it was the human," replied the worm.

Finn reached into his backpack. "Here, dude. Take this. It's a legendary guidebook called the Enchiridion."

"Oh, no no, don't worry," said the worm. "I gleaned everything I need to know about the business from you already." A crack of the wormy lips.

"He _is_ psychic," said Jake.

"It wasn't his head I peered into." A full blown smile. He faced Finn, head still held up high, proud as can be. "It was your heart."

"Aww… really?" Finn blinked, a little touched. "I said all that beshniz?"

"It can't have been your head, your head's mega tiny," said Jake.

Finn froze as he was struck with the realization of just how sickeningly _girly_ he must have been, to spout stuff like "the heart."

Suddenly, a squeak. Of course.

"Ooh, a worm!" The vole named Ælfgifu pounced, but Quasipan intercepted, picked the vole up by the tail.

"If you're attacking worms, I trust your senses have returned?" asked the cat drolly. "I do remember I left you with the rather unfortunately inaccurate impression that you're a cat, but then, my own category error was a tad bit greater—I used to think I was a _god_, of all things!"

"I'm not a cat?" asked the vole.

"Cats hardly eat worms."

"They don't?" Ælfgifu started panicking in Quasipan's grasp.

"Uhh, no, they don't!" said the worm, sweating wormy sweat.

"I'm pretty sure I've seen a cat eat a worm before," said Jake.

"Have you now? Well, then I certainly _do_ have much to learn, don't I?"

The cat snapped its paws, and the vole returned to normal.

"You can snap your paws again!" gasped Finn.

"I say, why so shocked? No matter the amount of information stored in this noggin of mine… there's always room for the imagination, isn't there?"

"Uhh… Gonna be a hero, kay, bye everybody!" The worm inched away at top speed from the vole while it was distracted.

"Yes, well, I believe it's time I departed to participate in this wide and wonderful world you humans left for us cats to play in."

"Sorry about destroying your UFO seat," said Finn. The wreckage of the flotation device was still kind of steaming in the winds.

"I'm not going to fly. It's time I walked. Walked on my own four feet."

"You're going to stumble a lot without a tail," said Jake.

"And I'll pick myself up each and every time. Now, adieu, and adieu."

Quasipan lifted his front paws, and Finn and Jake took them to shake goodbye before the cat could topple over.

"Hold on, kitty, could you stay?" asked Ælfgifu. "I know you cats like to eat rodents and stuff, but… we could use some serious firepower for the coming war against the capybara-pika alliance. They'll seize upon our compromised position and stuff!"

"Little one, there is no need." Quasipan tapped his head. "I predict no such war will occur."

"How come?"

"In my infinite approximate knowledge, I know only one thing for certain: Jake the dog and Finn the human will save the day."

"Ugggh," said Jake, rolling on the grass. "Can't the worm do it or something, I just want to sleep."

"Up and at 'em Jake, it's only 1:00 in the afternoon!" yelled Finn.

"Have we really done that much in such a short period? We're getting maybe a little too good at this hero business, you know that?" Jake scratched his tummy.

"It's been roughly six hours since you two had breakfast," said Quasipan. "Now, I bid you farewell. I'm tuckered out myself, and I wish to dine on the fine salads of a quaint little restaurant on Mars. _Voles_, yes, quite…" The cat mumbled, amused.

"You're gonna walk to **Mars**?"

"I might cheat a little." And with that, Quasipan vanished from sight.

"…Wish I could teleport," said Jake.

"C'mon, dummy. Hop on my back."

Finn slung the dog over his shoulder and set about working to prevent the daily cycle of rodent wars on the Meerkat Plains. They still had the rest of the day to perform heroics they'd actually remember, after all. It was a tough job, but whenever an innocent cried out, Finn the Human and Jake the Dog were always on call.


End file.
